Tuesday, December 16, 2008
RNA Sugar Found on Exoplanet
It's cool that scientists have found this molecule *out there.* However, it just serves to yet again emphasize what I view as the biggest stupidity in our 'search' for extraterrestrial life: that it has to look exactly like terrestrial life (in this case molecularly, if not outwardly). RNA is necessary for life here (and life that works how we work, however little we understand that at all), but why shouldn't life elsewhere have some other chemical unit of replication? It is, in my view, no different than the deists who say that life on Earth must be unique because G-d said so.
